Age Range: 14-Adult (Grades 9-Adult; children with parental supervision)

This portion of the larger Annenberg Learner website provides 52 half-hour video lessons that use the immersion method of teaching to increase French fluency and introduce French culture.

The videos present a humorous continuing story of an American student and a Frenchwoman’s adventures in France. Additional native speakers of all ages and backgrounds not only add to the storyline but enhance the learning process.

Each lesson begins with an episode of the continuing story. The next portion of the lesson clarifies and illustrates the dialog of the story with focus on a specific term. Each lesson also provides opportunities to “participate” in the video by repeating lines. A sampling of lesson topics include:

At this website, explore the virtual exhibit of the Mary Rose, a 16th century warship that was King Henry VIII’s favorite.

After a long and successful military career, it sank during an engagement with the French fleet in 1545. Nautical archaeologists raised it in the 1980’s. Now part of an exhibit at a museum in Portsmouth, England, the Mary Rose is the only 16th century warship on display in the world.

At today’s interactive website, you can take a virtual tour of the Mary Rose and, while you’re at it, learn about the Tudor period of world history as well.

When you get to the site either scroll through the page to begin exploring or use the right-hand “Quick links” menu to select:

The Crew of the Mary Rose

The Mary Rose at Sea – 1511-1545

Why did the Mary Rose Sink?

The Story of the Ship

Artefacts

Her Crew

Browse through the image galleries to see images of the Mary Rose and artifacts recovered from the wreck site. On “The Story of the Ship” look on the right side under “Useful resources” to locate “Dive in” to access an interactive presentation. Use the menu to explore a 3D model of the ship, meet the crew, learn the history and archaeology of the Mary Rose, and see artifacts. Also available on “The Story of the Ship” page, be sure to check out the Mary Rose STEM Lab that presents “Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths in a unique context.”

As explained at the website, “Explore the Mary Rose is designed to encourage pupils to do two things: to do their own research, and to work from evidence. They can find out for themselves about one member of the crew and his life on board, and discover the main facts about the history and archaeology of the ship. Using the knowledge gained in this way, they can then look more closely at photographs of the artefacts and, working from them, start to draw their own conclusions from the evidence available.”

The site was designed to be used independently by the learner so they can explore the Mary Rose at will. It engages the student and provides basic information. There is a lot of material available throughout the site so if students want to learn more, they can browse through the other sections of the site to find virtual 3D reconstructions of skulls and artifacts, more resources for researching the Mary Rose, and much more.

Singing is a fun way to introduce a foreign language. This website offers dozens of holiday songs and carols in English, Spanish, Latin, French, Italian, and German.

When you get to the site, look for the language you prefer. Below it, you’ll find a menu of songs. Click on a song and a new screen opens where you’ll see the lyrics to the song. In most cases you’ll be able to watch and listen to a video production of the song as well. Some popular songs available in different languages are:

Learn a foreign language with these shared content, self-paced courses from the Georgia Virtual Learning website.

Using the sidebar menu choose from the following languages:

Chinese

Japanese

Spanish

German

French

Latin

These languages are also available for different levels. Once a selection is made, choose a lesson by selecting the “View” link across from the name. Lessons vary in presentation – some lessons are solely textural while most have images, audio, interactives, and videos. There are also downloadable resources available throughout the lessons.

There is also available shared content for other subjects including Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Fine Arts (music and art) and Electives including computer science, health, business, marketing and more. Most courses are for the high school level but there are courses for middle school as well.

This website offers loads of ideas for helping children learn foreign languages.

When you get to the site you will see a list of activities to choose from. Select the “Load More” button on the bottom of the group to bring up more pages of available activities. Many of the free activities are game suggestions or printables that will help kids learn vocabulary, numbers, colors, food names, and words for various body parts. While some of the activities offer examples in another language, you can certainly substitute ANY foreign language you are currently studying and get great results.

In reviewing this website, we found activities specifically for the following languages:

Spanish

French

German

Greek

Latin

Lithuanian

Sign Language

Urdu

Please note that there are ads interspersed with the activity image links, but the activities are easily identified as each has a red icon box identifying it as an activity resource, idea, presentation, book or other teaching material with an age range under the icon. Select the “view” option to see the resource. (Review the “About” page for details about the icons and more.)

Reinforcing language skills through playing games is a whole lot more fun than typical drill and practice work suggested in textbooks – and many of these activities can be done in the car, at the grocery store, at an airport, and while waiting in line just about anywhere.

Daniel Boone was born November 2, 1734. This page from the Biography.com website provides a 45-minute video presentation on the life of Daniel Boone.

The video explores Daniel’s early life, his life experiences as a hunter and serving as a wagoner in the French and Indian War, explorer, and much more. There is a brief textural synopsis on the page as well as links to a couple of shorter related videos. After watching the video, this website from Garden of Praise provides additional resources to use in your study of Daniel Boone. After reading through the biography provided, there are additional: